Disney, which is launching a streaming service to compete with Netflix, is said to to interested in the 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight movie studios, as well as the FX and National Geographic channels. Disney, which owns the ABC television network and ESPN, is not interested in acquiring Fox News Channel, Fox Sports or the Fox broadcasting network.

Disney's choices reflect FCC regulations that prohibit them from owning two broadcast networks, according to CNBC, which broke the news of the talks. Also, buying Fox's sports programming assets and combining them with ESPN could be seen as anti-competitive from an antitrust standpoint.

The sale would allow 21st Century Fox to direct much of its attention to news and sports.

Disney announced in August it was pulling its first-run movies from Netflix starting in 2019 to put them on a Disney-branded service.